1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a casing and a blower.
2. Description of the Related Art
Blowers used for internal cooling have often been installed in electronic devices, such as notebook personal computers. Such a blower includes a centrifugal impeller, a motor arranged to rotate the impeller, and a casing arranged to accommodate the impeller and the motor. Once the motor of the blower is driven, the impeller is caused to rotate to generate an air current inside an electronic device. The blower thus dissipates heat radiating from an electronic component, such as a CPU, installed inside the electronic device.
The casing of the blower of this type includes a pair of plates and a support arranged to join these plates to each other. The support may be defined on one of the plates by resin outsert molding in order to achieve a reduction in weight or a shortening of a manufacturing process. In this case, it is necessary to securely fix the support to the plate.
A technique for increasing the strength with which a plate and a part made of a resin are fixed to each other in the case where the part made of the resin is defined on the plate by outsert molding is described, for example, in JP-UM-A H07-036586. According to the technique described in JP-UM-A H07-036586, a plurality of projections are cut and bent upward from a stator base, and a bearing holder made of a resin is defined integrally with the stator base so as to embrace the projections (see, for example, claim 1 and FIGS. 1, 2, and 3 of JP-UM-A H07-036586).
However, there is a very strong demand for miniaturization of electronic devices such as notebook personal computers, and in addition, there is a demand for wider air channels inside casings of blowers. When these demands are satisfied, an area in which a support can be arranged on a plate is small, and it is therefore difficult to cut and bend a plurality of projections as mentioned above upward from the plate. In addition, it is also difficult to increase the length of each individual projection cut and bent upward from the plate.
Such problems occur not only in the case of the casings used in the blowers but also in the case of casings used in other applications, when the area in which the support can be arranged is small.